Category: Business

The quarterly reports on gas and electricity customer numbers from the Utility Regulator are normally low on surprises. This supplier has attracted a few more consumers. That one has lost some. It’s not quite a snores fest but hardly riveting reading.

However the most recent edition contained a bit of shocker. It showed that Budget Energy had lost more ...

Following full deregulation of the commercial electricity market, Power NI have removed from view the only published tariff to which small businesses have access.

In a submission last July to the Energy Regulator, enirgy.info warned that this was likely to happen and recommended in the interests of greater transparency that all suppliers be required to put their prices in plain si...

Wholesale energy prices here fell by nearly 18% in February as increased imports into the UK of LNG combined with mild weather continued to push prices downwards. However, the Vayu Energy Report shows that despite this substantial drop wholesale prices are still well up on a year ago.

The company which spotted that the wholesale cost of power went negative one morning last month is probably the most interesting Irish energy firm you’ve never heard of. Electroroute reported that for three half hour periods on December 9, suppliers were being paid to take electricity off the grid. The wholesale cost plunged to minus €85 for a MWh which equates to about minus 7 pence a kWh.

The Energy Regulator has rejected a claim that exports of electricity to Great Britain have been a major cause in driving up the wholesale cost of power here.

In a note to enirgy.info detailing the background to the recent rise in prices, the Regulator says sales to GB have had only a marginal impact. Their analysis showed that exports were “responsible for setting prices ...

Since it first became clear that the wholesale price of electricity had markedly shifted upwards, explanations have been offered to explain the change.

Just to recap: the wholesale cost of power has been around £30 a MWh or 3 pence a kWh for many months. But in recent weeks it has jumped to £50 and even £60 a MWh hour. That’s the load weighted average price over an entire t...

There’s one clear message coming through about the North South Interconnector. If the power link isn’t built, the lights may very well go out. Both the Energy Regulator and the company which operates the electricity system have issued statements to that effect. Anyone who reads or listens to the news on a regular basis surely cannot have missed the story.

Now that Stormont has put smart metering on the long finger, is there another way for consumers to catch up with the rest of the UK, help manage demand for electricity more efficiently and most importantly get rewarded for their co-operation?

The solution may well lie in a system being developed by a company across the water.

It’s emerged there is no plan to offer homes along the Northern Ireland section of the proposed North South Interconnector the same compensation as their counterparts in the Republic.

The General Manager of SONI, the body which operates the electricity system here, told members of the Westminster NI Affairs Committee there is no equivalent of the Republic’s Community and Proximity Funds...

Evermore Energy, the company behind the proposed 400 MW gas fired power plant in the Belfast Harbour Estate, has told an influential House of Commons committee that it intends to be operating commercially by 2019 subject to planning and financing.

The Energy Regulator is proposing to remove the price control which covers the supply of electricity to small businesses. Currently Power NI’s tariff for companies using up to 50 MWh a year has to be approved by the Regulator. The supplier has argued that switching is now frequent enough in this sector, which has around 50,000 customers, to justify the removal of the price control.

Not just free electricity. It’s even better than that. Across the water on Sunday May 8, according to energy data company @enappsys, generators paid more than £30 a MWh to be relieved of unwanted power. It’s not the first time this has happened and the phenomenon is set to become more common.

Perhaps it was the sunny weather but whatever the reason, there was quite a lot of energy news this week. And most of it was positive.

Topping the list was the revelation that the same brothers who have created a biomass power plant at Lisahally in Derry are planning a much bigger generating station in Belfast. Ciaran and Stephen Devine want to build a 400 M...

Despite an expanding renewables energy sector, total energy related emissions of carbon dioxide in the Irish Republic rose last year by almost four per cent compared with the previous year. In the UK emissions fell by just under three per cent. There is no separate figure for Northern Ireland.

Across the EU as a whole the EU statistics agency Eurostat estimates that
carbon dioxide e...

Wholesale gas prices have fallen by 40 per cent over the course of the last twelve months according to the latest Wholesale Energy Market Report published by Vayu Energy. The company which recently announced an expansion into Northern Ireland put the collapse in prices down to abundant supplies and suppressed demand.

Longstanding Housing Executive manager Noel Rice has picked up the top prize at the Annual Action Renewables Association Awards 2016. He beat off tough competition to win the Outstanding Award for Work in the Renewable Energy Sector.

Here's the assessment of Noel's role presented to guests at the Action Renewables Awards ceremony in Titanic Belfast.

The investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority into the energy supply market in Great Britain unsurprisingly attracted virtually no attention here. That’s understandable. Most of what was said only applies to a market we don’t participate in and which is run on different principles. Across the water they have fairly unrestricted competition while here domestic customers can rely on ...

While electricity prices these days never present a static picture thanks to the entry of new suppliers, the landscape should be clearer when Power NI’s price cut comes into effect on Thursday, April 1.

The company, which still retains the loyalty of three in four of those households who pay for their power in arrears, will be cutting its charges by just over 10 per c...

Last year just over 25% of electricity consumption in Northern Ireland was generated from renewable sources based. That’s an increase of 6.4% on the previous12 months and is the highest rolling 12 month proportion on record. The vast bulk of green electricity produced in 2015 - just over 90% - was generated by wind turbines.

Fair Head Tidal say their planned 100 MW turbine installation off the North Antrim coast will produce enough power to satisfy the demands of 70,000 homes.

What this implies is that the turbines will have about a 25% efficiency which is comparable to the output of wind turbines. Except of course the building and running of these underwater generators is bound to b...

How long can the
Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) programme continue to enjoy the level of support
it has been receiving from Government? There is a worry that subsidy rates could be
cut back. Some fear it could be even be closed to new entrants.

Currently the scheme provides money for both the domestic and non-domestic sector. The money helps su...

The newly approved Cam Burn wind farm near Aghadowey will produce enough electricity to light up and power all the devices in 7,900 homes. That’s the claim by developer TCI Renewables. How do they work that out?

They start off with the installed capacity of the wind farm. That’s 13.8 megawatts. In theory if the wind blew all the time you could expect to get 13.8 ...

When I first started to compose my thoughts for this article on renewable energy, there was still a hope that the Department of Energy and Climate Change in London would cut us some slack on support for new onshore wind farms. It wasn’t a big ask. Letting the Renewables Obligation (RO) scheme run on here for a year longer than in Great Britain wouldn’t have imposed a huge burden. The closure ...

The firmus Energy Index touched a new low in July as world markets continue to be swamped by a surplus of oil. The Index, which tracks wholesale fuel prices in Northern Ireland, dropped to 74. That’s the lowest figure recorded since the benchmark was launched over five years ago.

Brent crude ended July at just over 52 dollars a barrel following a 17 per cent pri...

Continuing weakness last month in the global oil market has moved the firmus Energy Index close to a six year low. The widely regarded measure of Northern Ireland wholesale fuel costs fell by four per cent to stand at 84 in June.

Oil prices had been recovering recently amid good news about the US economy but the economic crisis in Greece helped reverse the trend...

The scale of electricity meter tampering has been disclosed in a consultation document issued by the Energy Regulator. It appears that energy suppliers suspect around 5,000 meters are being interfered with. The extent of the losses from the theft involved has not been revealed. However it's understood that some customers are managing to avoid almost any payment while others are roughly hal...

New figures issued by the Department for Enterprise show how the output of green electricity is still growing.

For the 12 month
period from April 2014 to March 2015, 19.9% of total electricity consumption in
Northern Ireland was generated from renewable sources located in Northern
Ireland. This represents an increase of 0.5 percentage points on the previous
12 month period

Bombardier has just unveiled Ireland’s largest rooftop solar installation at its Belfast wing manufacturing and assembly facility on Queen’s Island. It comprises 14,000 PV panels which will generate 3000 MWh a year – equivalent to the electricity needs of 1000 homes

The arrangement of panels was designed and installed by SALIIS Renewables which will continue to maintain the facility.

Up to four
thousand jobs could be lost in the small-scale renewable energy sector if
Northern Ireland fails to find a replacement for Renewable Obligation
Certificates or ROCs, which won’t be available to sustain new installations
after March 2017.

Michael
Doran, the Director of Action Renewables, issued the warning following the
revelation by DETI that there is no guarantee that so...

An increase in
the price of oil during April lifted the firmus energy Index to 91. Month on
month the cost of a barrel rose 17 per cent. Oil is more expensive now than at any
time since the start of January. However, the overall cost of energy remains
well below the average level of the past five years despite this hike in the
price of oil.

Rises in wholesale
fuel prices in February have almost entirely reversed during March. The firmus
energy Index dropped ten per cent last month to finish at 82, just above the
mark it reached in January 2015.

The
strengthening of the world’s main currency paradoxically helped to lower the
cost of energy last month. The firming up of the dollar has a track record i...

A new discussion paper issued by DETI reveals the profound impact that reform of the electricity market across the UK will have on the renewable energy industry in Northern Ireland. Don’t be misled by its bland title: CFD Implementation in NI–Strategic issues. This document contains lots that should concern and even alarm wind farm developers and solar panel installers. It will also grea...

Reform of the all island Single Electricity Market (SEM) has been forecast to put up bills but now there are grounds for believing it will cut charges

The move to the new arrangement which has been entitled the Integrated Single Electricity Market or I-SEM and is required by the EU will involve the auctioning of capacity payments. These are a reward to generators for keeping th...

In a surprise move the company aiming to build Northern Ireland’s first major offshore wind farm has cancelled its plans saying it cannot meet a key Government deadline

First Flight Wind, a consortium involving B9 Energy and giant Danish company Dong Energy, had hoped to locate turbines, capable of generating between 300 and 400 megawatts of power, in the sea near Annalong ...

After moving sideways for a couple of months, the wholesale cost of energy lurched downwards by six per cent in October. The firmus energy Index which monitors a basket of key prices in Northern Ireland dropped to 108, its lowest point in just over four years.

The index was dragged down by a fall in the cost of oil. The charge for a barrel has fallen by 25% sin...